A World Health Organization report reveals that the cancer burden is growing at an alarming pace, with the number of annual new cancer cases feared to reach 22 million by 2035 from the current rate of 14 million new cases per year.

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12 Responses to “WHO: A Coming ‘Tidal Wave’ of Cancer”

Over the last 2 years this has steadily become a bigger concern of mine. I am slowly replacing all chemical products (cleaning, shampoo, soap, etc.) in my house with what are supposedly less toxic products and I have switched to mostly organic foods. It may or may not make a difference, but increased cost is minimal.

I’m with you Chad. I’ve made some major changes after losing some friends/family to cancer. Call me paranoid, but I’ve really changed my eating habits. No more fast food at all, try and avoid processed foods, and limit my sugar intake. I get organic fruits/veggies from a CSA (community supported agriculture) that delivers a box of fresh goodies every week. I think it’s important to know where your food comes from and how it’s grown and for me organic and non-gmo is crucial. I also eat more so called cancer fighting foods (broccoli, kale, kiwis, blueberries, raspberries and cook with a lot of garlic, ginger and tumeric). I get alkaline water delivered in 5 gallon glass containers. I try and avoid eating or drinking things that comes in plastic. Google BPA, it’s a horrible chemical that get’s absorbed into foods/liquids from plastics/canned items. I also have changed up my cleaning/household products to non toxic items as well as shampoo, deodorant, and soaps. 60% of the things you put on your body are absorbed, why expose yourself to chemicals that have been known to cause cancer? This is a really good resource that you can check out the products you use and see if any of the ingredients you use are toxic:http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/

What you have to accept about cancer is that if you live long enough, cancer is what will kill you. Evolution guarantees it. Cancer cells are doing exactly what evolution has programmed them to do: multiply and flourish. With all the cells being replicated, split, etc., there are bound to be errors, and those errors are cancer. Don’t smoke, eat a vegetable-heavy diet, and make sure to exercise. That is all you can do. All the toxic chemicals out there account for a VERY small percentage of cancer deaths. A huge reason cancer deaths are increasing so fast is that OTHER diseases don’t kill us anymore. You can have quadruple bypass surgery and get yourself 15 more years of life. Those 15 years get you to age 75 or 80. If you are 80 or older, you’re either healthy or lucky, and either way cancer will get you eventually. If you think of it this way, you’ll feel better about it. My mom is an oncologist and I’m here to tell you that we will NEVER defeat cancer. If cancer doesn’t kill us, what will? We all have to die some time.

The only caveat to all of this is that it is BS that kids have to deal with cancer. I support throwing all the money we’ve got at preventing/treating cancer in people under the age of 18. Otherwise, when you’re number is up, it’s increasingly going to be because of cancer, because we’ve gotten so smart that the other stuff isn’t killing us anymore. Not trying to be negative or defeatist at all. Cancer is proof of evolution’s success, and of our body’s fragility.

Finally, thanks to BR for posting so many interesting, non-economic articles. This is the first and last site on the web I check every day.

No disrespect to your mother, but we are just scratching the surface when it comes to our knowledge of medical science. We seem to be further ahead in the understanding of physics than our own bodies. Hell, we don’t even know what our optimum diet would be. We have an idea, but no one knows for certain. I will still be keeping the chemicals out of my life when possible, as the negatives are very minor.

The ‘tidal wave’ is age-related: people all over the globe are living long enough to get cancer because the old, early killers – contagious diseases, industrial chemical exposure, childbirth, etc, etc, – have been largely defeated.

No worries, however: The cancer tide may not come in as predicted, if longevity decreases due to the stress on civilization caused by runaway planetary over-heat.

I highly recommend “The Emperor of All Maladies“. An excellent book on the history of the fight against cancer.
Regarding the rising incidence of cancer. If nothing else kills you, cancer will. Cancer is a disease of aging. If you live long enough, you WILL get cancer….

Agree with the comments about cancer being an age-related problem. It’s just the way it is. Oh! And kids don’t “have to deal” with the problem: we have a very high success rate in curing childhood cancers and this knowledge is being acquired by developing countries too.

As for us having defeated contagious diseases…I’m afraid this was a temporary victory. Bacterial resistance to every antibiotic we’ve got is becoming a very alarming problem.

Yet, the FDA and USDA still refuse to force meat producers to go without, DESPITE the fact that transmission of resistance from livestock to humans has demonstrably occurred.

Lets put this in perspective- at current rates 0.002% of the worlds population gets cancer per year. Very little change by 2035 as population also increases. By contrast the leading causes of death are heart disease and stroke – almost 14 million yearly on their own. Cancer is primarily in your genes- good genes – little family history, little risk of cancer. I’d be more concerned about dying of a heart attack or stroke. Some genetic component – bigger killer.

Cancer is a disease of successful public health management. In the US, the epidemic started in the 1930s, when life spans got long enough for cancer to emerge as a major killer. There was a lot of public concern and some hope. Surgery was getting safer and radiation treatment was promising. (In Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy everybody smoked and thought nothing of it. So, you got cancer, you got radiation treatment, and that was that.) It’s going to be a while before quantum tunneling into a black hole, after maybe 10^10^200 years, becomes a major cause of death.

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Ritholtz has been observing capital markets with a critical eye for 20 years. With a background in math & sciences and a law school degree, he is not your typical Wall St. persona. He left Law for Finance, working as a trader, researcher and strategist before graduating to asset managementRead More...

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